Heroes episode 3.07 “Eris Quod Sum“
Airdate: October 27, 2008

This episode comes on the heels of Entertainment Weekly’s harsh look at what is wrong with the series. But before we get to painting the big picture (or finding it), let’s first review/recap the current episode.

  Sylar to the rescue! Sylar comes to his brother’s rescue! We can all guess he took Peter’s place to get inside the company, and then slowed down his fall from the 7th floor. But I love how the episode led up to this. It seems that Angela’s powers are beyond merely dreaming or seeing the future. She can actually communicate with others in their dreams even when she’s in a coma. So she tells Sylar to wake up, get himself out of Level 5, and rescue Peter. And then to tell her new ‘favorite son’ Gabriel that he still hasn’t reached his full potential yet, that’s a revelation. I wonder what Sylar would be like if he used all his intrinsic abilities (and not the ones he took). Still, something doesn’t sit well with Gabriel’s newfound love for his mom. I can’t believe The First Evil is needy like that - “she was the first person to accept me for who I am” - as if all he needed was someone to love him! All that brain-stripping for that? Hmm. I don’t know.

It was right for daddy Arthur to insinuate that Angela is not the ideal mother that Gabriel was looking for. I’m sure there’s some truth to that! And yet, even when Gabriel stayed with his newfound dad, you can tell he wasn’t completely sold on the “Father-son world domination” either.

So what happens with the rest of the Heroes? There is more after the cut.

image used with permission: NBC/Photo Mitchell Haaseth

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Heroes episode 3.06 “Dying of the Light“
Airdate: October 20, 2008

Even after the Level 5 fiasco, I never doubted that those who possess Sylar’s powers - him and Peter - can do the greatest harm. That is, until dad comes along. Arthur Petrelli is scary. He is now virtually unstoppable and everyone around him is dispensable.

But first let’s see what went down -

Knox took Adam Monroe in to see a bedridden, immovable Arthur Petrelli, and for the first time Adam was scared for his life. Arthur only had to touch him and Adam’s powers and life source transferred to the incapacitated elder. Adam dried out and turned to dust right before our eyes! Is this goodbye for David Anders? Man, he wasn’t really given enough scenes to shine in volume 3. It’s a shame.     NBC Photo: Adam Taylor

Meanwhile, Meredith is hostaged by Eric Doyle, a puppeteer who can control a human’s muscles and movement. Claire and her mom Sandra try to save her only to be held captive themselves. A game of Russian roulette points the gun at Claire and Sandra shoots her daughter. Eric Doyle’s mad laughter at the sight of a dead Claire was short-lived when Claire regenerated and hit the puppeteer’s head unconscious. HRG finishes the job by putting Doyle into a coma and bringing him back to Level 5.

Now for a good news and a big ‘whew’!

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Heroes episode 3.04 “I am become Death“
Airdate: October 6, 2008

THIS is the episode that should get viewers hooked to future episodes! There are so many reveals and so many more questions. I’ll throw mine in later but now let’s look at what happened.

Tracy Strauss finds she’s one of identical triplets who became test subjects for DNA manipulation. A formula injected into them created their abilities. The other twins were Niki and a still-mysterious Barbara. Confused and desperate, Tracy attempted to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, and just in time Nathan swooped in to save her. Now they know the truth about each other, and whoa, are they hooking up?

Future Peter brings present Peter four years into the future and shows him how a formula from the past has given people abilities. Future Pete wants his alter-ego to stop whoever started the chain reaction of events. Unfortunately, Claire got to future Peter and shot him dead on the spot. Present Peter runs to find Mohinder, who has become reptilian and blames himself for what he has unleashed on the world.

images used with permission by NBC / Adam Taylor and Chris Haston

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This is the Milo Ventimiglia movie that makes CSI look like a stale imitation. That “Pathology” lacks subtlety is exactly what the directors and writers were aiming for - it’s what would have been like as the real thing.  It’s direction, actors, sets and the dead bodies were totally believable, and that’s why this medical thriller is not a film for the squeamish. Since I didn’t get to watch the movie when it went out, I checked out the DVD.

It also had a weird way of pulling the viewer (me) in, while keeping the stomach stay knotted the whole time. You know it’s not going to end well, but you want to know just how sick and vile the characters can go. So you watch till the end, and then you feel sick and relieved when it’s over.

“Pathology” revolves around Dr. Ted Grey (Milo Ventimiglia), a new Pathology intern at the University Hospital in Philadelphia who cross hairs with a group of psychopathic residents and their sick game of committing the perfect crime. The rest must then figure out how this crime was committed, and the winner goes to the unsolved murder. Fascinated with playing god, Grey finds out too late how deep he is in the muck, and the only way out was to commit the final perfect murder.

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Heroes episode 3.03 “One of us, One of them“
Airdate: September 29, 2008

The Level 5 villains have escaped and the Company is scrambling to bring them back. They take a bank hostage and ringleader Benjamin Knox lures the Company to take revenge on Noah Bennet, the one who bagged and tagged them.

After being incarcerated inside his cell for who knows how long, Noah reported back to his employers purportedly to help capture the bad guys. He ends up being partnered with Sylar, who Angela Petrelli vouches for as her misunderstood son. It’s interesting what Angela told Noah when he hesitated to pair up with Sylar - “I can make you do what you don’t want to do.” You really wonder the extent of her powers. So, Angela blamelessly tells Sylar that his uncontrollable “hunger” drove him to become who he is. She is actually encouraging Sylar to take even more, and he doesn’t disappoint.

Peter, stuck in the body of Jesse, finally discovers his host’s powers - the sound waves from his voice become a visible force that displaces everything in its path. Just in time, future Peter steps in, knocks Peter off of Jesse’s body and takes his alter-ego to the future. Now that’s really interesting! We know present and future persona can meet, but to take your other self along to the future? That’s a twisted view of the space-time continuum.

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Heroes Premiere “The Second Coming/Butterfly Effect“
Aired: September 22, 2008

Tonight, at 9 pm ET, “Heroes” continues with the third episode “One of us, one of them“. But before we delve into the story, let’s look at highlights from last week’s 2-hour premiere “The Second Coming/Butterfly Effects” quickly.

• Future Peter goes back to the present and shoots Nathan. He imprisons present Peter in the body of a Level 5 inmate, Jesse.
• Sylar becomes invincible/immortal.  
• Claire is alive, able to heal but unable to feel pain.
• Claire’s mom Meredith arrives at the Bennets.
• Linderman heals Nathan from the fatal gunshot wounds.
• Tracy Strauss, who looks exactly liked Niki Sanders, invites Nathan as junior Senator for New York.
• Tracy uses her freeze-powers to kill a squealing reporter. 

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Smallville episode 8.02 “Plastique“
Airdate: September 25, 2008

Really, tonight’s episode has a very simple plot. But the cool thing about it is this episode laid out what the rest of the season is all about.

It’s Clark Kent’s first day as a Daily  Planet reporter, and a bus explosion puts the hero into a 911 mode. Clark helps several people to safety, and one of them is Tess Mercer, unknown to Clark at that time until later in the day when she introduces herself as the new boss at the Planet. Another survivor from the explosion is Bette Souci (Jessica Parker Kennedy), who was helped by Chloe Sullivan and paramedic Davis Bloom (Sam Witwer). When Chloe learned that Bette was a street-kid, Chloe offered her apartment until the teenager could find a better place.

Suspicious that the explosion might be caused by another meteor-freak, Clark asked Bette if she had seen anything. The girl lied that it was a boy she knew, and she then killed him with her “high frequency blast” powers to hide the truth.

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Heroes episode 3.02 “Butterfly Effect“
Airdate: September 22, 2008

As Angela Petrelli warned Peter, “step on a butterfly today, three years from now a million people are wiped out”. Who started a butterfly effect of events? Can it be stopped or are the pieces in place now for an inevitable future? Future Peter went back to the present to correct the mistakes that were made, but Angela’s dreams revealed that the future has now changed completely.

Future Peter hid present Peter in the body of a Level 5 prisoner - Jesse Murphy, and the former thought his alter-ego was safe. Well, as his mother confessed, Peter wasn’t the brightest of her sons. And, I keep wondering how in the world can you “hide” a man inside another man’s body? That’s obviously a new Peter-power.

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Heroes episode 3.01 “The Second Coming“
Airdate: September 22, 2008

And you thought you couldn’t get excited over “Heroes” again, can you? The season 3 premiere proved everyone wrong that the show has lost its luster. Edge-of-the-seat suspense and cliffhangers from start to finish, that’s what we saw this Monday.

Four years into the future, and it’s still a darker world. Despite preventing New York from exploding and the Shanti virus from being released, the world is still on the brink of catastrophe. It may even be worse, as the heroes themselves have changed.

Volume 3 “Villains” opens with Claire Bennet confronting Peter Petrelli and blaming him for everything that has happened to them. What exactly that is, we don’t know yet, but Claire is pissed off enough to want to kill her uncle. Peter thinks he can still save them, he can go back in time and change the course of history. And before Claire’s bullets can hit him Peter went back to the day it all started. He killed the one man he thought started it all, exposing posthumans to the world - his brother Nathan.

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“Transformers: Cybertron” The Ultimate Collection
Released July 22, 2008
Paramount Home Entertainment

This wasn’t anything like the ’80s “Transformers Animated“, for sure. And that’s the unfortunate truth.

“Transformers Cybertron (Robots in Disguise)” is the last of a three-part series (”Transformers: Armada” and “Transformers: Energon”) but since it makes no reference to the previous series new fans won’t be out of the loop.

The story. The continuous story arc opens with a massive black hole that threatens to destroy Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers. The only means to close the black hole are the Omega Lock and its four Cyber Planet Keys, ancient artifacts that were scattered in different worlds across the universe. An ancient Transformer called Vector Prime tasks Optimus Prime and the Autobots to locating the Keys and save the universe. This is where the Decepticons come in. Megatron plans to use the Keys to re-create the universe in his image.

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